Experiences during placement

The respondents were then questioned about their interaction with the Child Protection Services (CPS) prior to their children's placements. All the respondents had been in some form of interaction with CPS before their children were placed. Respondent A revealed that she had had some problems with her daughter but dealing with CPS had only led to communication and a simply checkup. Respondent B had faced challenges dealing with her daughter and had contacted the child protection services. They had a meeting six months before her daughter was placed. The meetings prior to the placement had earlier resulted in a visit to the child psychiatric institution from a very young age. The respond-ent further stated that she had been the one who contacted CPS. Respondrespond-ent C had been in contact with CPS almost the entire lives of her children. She stated that she had found her children to be rather demanding and difficult, therefore, she had sought the services of CPS when her children were still young, before they went to school. Respondent D re-vealed that she had been co-working with CPS from the child's very young age due to the divorce with the child's father. She stated that she had received support from CPS when the child was small.

Although different their stories were, their situations both had similarities and differences.

The respondents who were all mothers were asked to relate on their own accord, the events that led to the placements. Respondent A told about how her child in the 9th grade had begun skipping classes but did well enough and moved to high school. During the summer vacation the respondent worked and therefore, the child had less parental super-vision. This meant she could do anything and go anywhere.

When the autumn came she started high school but missed many classes and she began to fail. The respondent had found the child an apartment in the city as they lived 50km away in the country side. According to the respondent the child abused the living situation as they often found indications of alcohol and smoking. Before she had spoken to her daughter who promised to change, so she had gone ahead with buying her school station-ery but the child wasn't interested in those efforts. She viewed her actions as not being

enough and wasn't getting the support she had hoped for from her husband. She decided to contact CPS.

The responded continued to tell how she found the contact number of the Rovaniemi online city services. She called the hotline and left a message after she got no answer. For a couple of weeks no one contacted her and so she later called another number and on that line she got an answer. She scheduled a meeting with CPS and there she made the report herself. This was after efforts to talk to her child had proved unsuccessful. When questioned about the school, she stated that the school had not contacted her but she tried to keep in touch with the teachers to find out how the child was doing.

Respondent B started by telling how she, and her daughter fought constantly and they couldn't bear each other. The child had often threatened to run away to her friends who lived in Helsinki. Her uncle was the only person who lived in the city and they had visited him sometimes. The respondent stated that her daughter didn't have any friends in the current city and her friends were in the capital city. According to the respondent commu-nication stopped except that they constantly yelled at each other. Even though she tried but felt her face was annoying to her child. According to the respondent, yelling became normal but looking back at the situation she only realized it was only yelling and not talk-ing the entire time which was not good.

At the age of six her daughter was diagnosed with ADHD and had a horrible experience at school. The school contacted the respondent often leading to the child being kicked out of school and placed in a psychiatric institution in a crisis period. The respondent contacted a friend who worked in aftercare services (Jakihuolto) and they discussed her daughter's behaviour. During this crisis period the child visited home but continued to threaten her parents with running away. Failure for the respondent to physically control the child led to the respondent to contact her friend who advised her to contact CPS.

The respondent called CPS at 9am on the day and at 2pm, CPS came to collect her, it was an urgent placement. When the workers took away her clothes, they found sharp objects in her clothes and that she and been cutting herself. They are said to also have found 50 tablets in her room, which the respondent has no knowledge what they are for. So the

lat-ter continued to search the room aflat-ter work, revealing that the week aflat-ter the child was placed was horrible. She says she began to relax a little and that her throwing up and ab-sence from work had been due to stress which went away after the placement.

Respondent C also shared her experience with her two sons. The first son is reported to have been at junior high when he started having difficulties at school and began using cannabis. He was caught among a group of young people in Rovaniemi who were caught using cannabis. When the police contacted the respondent the matter was taken to CPS. It was then realized that he was smoking a lot.

The mother then asked that the child be placed. The social worker in-charge of the case is said to have asked if the respondent meant emergency placement or placement after the weekend. So the respondent confirmed that she wanted immediate placement. Prior to the incident, the child's school experience had dropped and it surprised the respondent but she believes the change in her son had been sudden and quick. The reason for the placement was more of a crisis, criminal case, knowledge of drug use and therefore, the placement. Afterwards the responded said she questioned her quick decision but came to the conclusion that it was probably the best decision.

The placement is said to have been a relief as the mother began to concentrate more at work and have rest at home. Earlier it had been a challenge for the respondent to be at work and still monitor her son to stay out of trouble. She stated that she began to grow out of the habit of worrying and continuously keeping an eye on her children all the time.

According to the respondent having her older son placed was a relief for her and her younger son. She felt that the younger child could exit living in the shadow of his older brother who had a strong personality and could emotionally stir the rest of the family. All the pressure that had built up from the older son was relieved immediately. The respond-ent revealed that she hoped that things wouldn't go so far with her younger son but it did.

The placement of the respondent's younger son had started by the absences from school.

At some point the boy had stolen painkillers from home and the respondent reveals that she felt a change in the atmosphere. The child was not interested in school anymore, had trouble getting up in the morning and also looked depressed. The school warned her that

he may not graduate from the 9th grade. The contact from the school was there but not enough, therefore, contacting the school was on her terms. The respondent decided that to contact CPS about placement and a family worker assisted in making the emergency placement. The first place was further from Rovaniemi as there was no room close to the city but the right procedures were followed.

The younger child's second placement was institutional care in Rovaniemi. He had started vocational school and it didn't go well as the use of cannabis and class absences began to surface. The respondent states that she felt she had had enough. The younger child is said to have felt positive about the placement but didn't show up. This placement according to the respondent was planned and followed procedure but the child ran away because he didn't want to be placed in institutional care. The second placement was first considered an emergency placement for a month (ran away), then a month of voluntary, then anoth-er month of emanoth-ergency (caught smoking cannabis) and two weeks of voluntary place-ment. In total the placement was 3,5months.

Respondent D revealed that she separated with the father of her child when her daughter was 2 years old. The court therefore, ordered shared custody which didn't work as planned. The respondent states that she received support from CPS when the child was small. The father of her child suddenly passed away in a caravan fire in the autumn of 2008. In the same fall, the child changed to junior high. The bullying at school started and she was absent from school and was not at the same level with others. The child began to suffer migraines and had symptoms of depression.

She began placement in Rovaniemi attending the hospital school where they helped her with depression. She had also been cutting herself. The period in hospital lasted till mid-March and then she came back to her own school with bad progress. She wasn't eating at school or any kind of food as she said she didn't have an appetite to eat even at home.

This was followed by extreme weight loss which she didn't see or understand. Due to the extreme weight loss she was placed in the beginning of June in the Lapland hospital to the children's ward to be cared for there. In [name of place withheld] there is no place for children with eating disorders. As [name of place withheld] didn't have to offer support network to home for me so that she could get well, they ended up bringing the option of

open placement. Till today she is still in the same place with the whole period lasting about 3 months.

She transitioned from home to the family placement. After [name of place withheld] she was at home and often went there to talk to someone. In the beginning of June we no-ticed the situation was malnutrition so she had to go to the hospital until July. The re-spondent states that as a single carer she didn't have the support network to follow up if she ate or not. When asked if they could assist in finding support network in [name of place withheld] which was not available in the summer. [Name of place withheld] was therefore, closed during the summer. A radical solution was then made to place her in a family home in [name of place withheld] (Köngäs) which was very far but she had to move right away from the hospital she moved to that family home in [name of place withheld].

So my daughter was in foster care for 3 months, in hospital for a little more than a month then foster care home.

For the placement in [name of place withheld the respondent states that she felt her shout for help had been answered because she was absent for over 200hrs from school.

Since she had skipped so much classes, she was behind and she couldn't start the semes-ter, there was bullying, and she closed herself in her room building those walls. The re-spondent said her daughter had fear moments and felt that she didn't have strength to function as a mother without this support network, so she didn't see any other option and felt good about the solution she had received. On the other hand the respondent reveals that she felt bad because she was thinking about her daughter. It was also a hard time as it took strength from her because she drove there every week to meet her in [name of place withheld.

When questioned about how these changes impacted their families, the respondents had varying responses. Respondent A stated that they were relieved as they knew that she was safe and hoped that she would start going to school again and at least not continuing with smoking and drinking. They hoped she would come out of it and get her intelligence back. Respondent C revealed that during the first placement of the younger son, the older son still lived at home but during the second placement of the younger brother, he had

moved out to his own apartment. The respondent stated that she felt disappointed that her son had not learnt his lesson from the first placement.

The second placement was planned but there is the other side I enjoyed I didn't have forced responsibility. She stated that she was used to being alone at home and could have peace and read books in peace. She continued to say that every time she comes from work she doesn't have to worry if she will find the house standing and not on fire. She worried, as she chose to look on the brighter side at that moment. She reveals that she was worried how things were going with the child. She says she knew that the placement would end at some point but she didn't think about herself at that point in time and didn't want to worry as she would benefit at the end. Respondent D said it was easier to talk about things before she had worried about sharing her worries with her parents and sister as they worried too.